"The web has been alight these past few weeks with the details of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit. It's been a unique opportunity to peer behind the curtain of how these two companies operate, as the trial seeks to answer the question: did Samsung copy Apple? But there's actually another question that I think is much more interesting to the future of innovation in the technology industry: regardless of whether the courts say that Samsung copied Apple or not, would we all be better off if we allowed - even encouraged - companies to copy one another?" This is very relevant.

In both examples the copies were better in a number of ways than the originals. The Nissan engines were much cheaper to build and lighter than the originals without sacrificing perfomance or reliability. The MX-5 was far better built and far more reliable than the Lotus

Ive's designs are clearly built on the work of Dieter Rams, only an idiot would argue otherwise. However Ive's added his own thinking and I utterly defend his right to do so.

Dieter Rams works were also highly derivative and not particularly unoriginal. His ideas can be readily traced back to the minimalist designs of the early 20th century. These in turn were derived from ancient Japanese design principles.